South Africa. Pension funds shouldn’t be ‘fearful’ of Eskom – Ramaphosa
President Cyril Ramaphosa has given the strongest indication yet that the savings of pension funds will be used to bail out Eskom’s debt obligations.
Briefing the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) in Cape Town, Ramaphosa said South Africans “weren’t that good” at saving money and that pension funds were the main sources of money to save Eskom.
The national power utility has to repay over R450bn in debt. “You have to go to the source of investments. Where can we get funding? We no longer have space to loan money [for Eskom],” Ramaphosa said in response to a question about discussions at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) on a social compact to bail out Eskom.
Cosatu has proposed that the Government Employees Pension Fund, through the Public Investment Corporation, should take over R250bn of Eskom’s debt obligations.
Many unions have since opposed the pension plan. Ramaphosa said he understood why people were worried about their pensions being used to “go down a loss-making entity”, but that Eskom is being rebuilt and that the investment would be into a “revitalised, revamped, non-corrupt” Eskom.
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